The Indian Diaspora Playlist

Bollywood brought the NRI experience into the mainstream (and made millions of dollars doing it). After a spate of NRI focused movies, we had not only another demographic hooked onto Bollywood but also a cultural narrative to discuss the “neither-here-neither-there” feeling that many in the diaspora feel. Although the Bollywood portrayal of the diasporic experience is hardly nuanced and heavy-handed on the “Mera Bharat Mahaan” trope[1], it does represent a group of people who are often ignored in the popular culture of both their home and adopted countries.

Sometimes when I’m in the mood to wallow in my NRI angst I’ve wished that there was a convenient Bollywood playlist that I could access. Unfortunately, although there are playlists for everything under the sun including the oxymoronic “Best of Himesh Reshamiya”, there don’t seem to be too many playlists catered to us. So I decided to put together one of my own. Below are some of my most-played “NRI” songs, from Bollywood and beyond, in no particular order.

1.     Mera Joota Hai Japani – Shree 420 (1955)

 

“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start” – Maria Von Trapp

Shree 420 has nothing to do with NRIs and is instead about the birth of an independent India, and the rural-urban, modern-old world conflicts that come along with it. Yet the lyrics could be lifted straight from the diary of any Indian student going abroad for the first time with gems like:

            Upar niche, niche upar, leher chale jeevan ki

            High and low, low and high, the waves of life flow

            Nadaan hai jo baithe kinaare, puche raah watan ki

Naïve are those who wait by the shore and only look towards the motherland

           

And of course the iconic opening verse that has become even more relevant in our globalized world:

            Mera joota hai Japani, yeh patlunn Englishtaani

            My shoes are Japanese, these pants are British

            Sar pe lal topi Russi, phir bhi dil hai Hindustani

            There’s a red Russian hat on my head, yet my heart is still Indian

I like this song because it reminds us that these feelings of being lost between two worlds, of missing a home that exists only in our imaginations, is not restricted to just confused desis, but has been felt through the years in lots of different contexts.

2.     Ghar Aaja Pardesi – Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

If any movie catapulted the NRI back into the mainstream Indian consciousness, it’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. It was released after India’s liberalization, when the West was becoming more accessible to Indians and the barriers between “desh” and “videsh” started to fade. It was also one of the first movies to portray Indians abroad as guardians of their home country’s traditional culture, a fact that academicians, as well as any Indian American forced to sit through numerous arangatrams, can attest to.

Ghar aaja pardesi (literally “Come home, O foreigner”) manages to both be poignant and heap guilt on the prodigal NRI son.

Is gaon ki anpadh mitti padh nahin sakti teri chitthi
The illiterate soil of this village cannot read your letter,
Yeh mitti tu aakar chuume to is dharti ka dil jhuume
Only when you return kiss this soil, shall the heart of this earth sway with joy
Maana tere hain kuch sapne par ham to hain tere apne
We understand that you have your dreams, but we are your own also
Bhuulanewaale ham ko teri yaad sataaye re
O forgetful one, we are tormented by your memories!
Ghar aaja pardesi tera des bulaaye re
Come home, O foreigner, your country calls you

3.     Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera – Swades (2004)

This song is pictured on the patron saint of Bollywood NRI-ness – Shahrukh Khan. Like his other cult NRI film, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, this movie came out at a turning point in the relationship between the diaspora and the motherland. The Indian economy was becoming attractive enough (or conversely the economies in the West were becoming unattractive enough) that NRIs were seriously starting to consider returning to the motherland leading to a boom in the number of RNRIs (Returned Non Resident Indians). 

In Swades (literally “own country”), NASA scientist Mohan Bhargava is seduced by his homeland and ends up moving to a village there by the end of the movie (hey I never said Bollywood embraced realism). Yeh jo des hai tera is essentially a siren song calling wayward Indians home. The lyrics are beautiful, yet not at all subtle, and every line hits straight to the heart. Since every line just epitomizes diasporic angst I’ll just link to BollyMeaning’s wonderful translation instead of just translating a few lines on my own: http://www.bollymeaning.com/2014/11/yeh-jo-des-hai-tera-lyrics-translation.html

With lines like:

Aa laut chal tu ab deewane 

Come, let's go back, O crazy one
Jahaan koi to tujhe apna mane

Where at least someone will call you their own

This song will resonate more to recent immigrants rather than those who’ve grown up abroad and made a home for themselves in both countries.

4.     Main Jahan Rahoon – Namastey London (2007)

Nuanced, Namastey London is not; what with the “all white people are evil” trope (of course every Londoner is white) and the almost ten minute long “Mera Bharat Mahaan” speech at the end. Yet its songs are its strength, especially Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Main Jahan Rahoon. Along with an ode to the motherland, it is also an ode to the past, and indeed the two are often entwined in the minds of many immigrants, whose mental image of their home country is often stuck at the point in time that they left.

Main jahaan rahoon, Main kahin bhi hoon
Wherever I live, wherever I am
Teri yaad saath hai
Your memories are always with me/I am always thinking of you

I keep remembering this line when I’m in a nostalgic mood: Koi apni palkon par, yaadon ke diye rakhta hai. Some people keep the lamps of memories on their eyelashes.

           

5.     India Se Aaya – Kehta Hai Dil Baar Baar (2002)

Most of the songs on this list have been about a yearning for the motherland, or beseeching the listener to return home. There are precious few Bollywood songs that espouse a positive view of the adopted country and celebrate the immigrant experience of someone who is quite happy in his new home. Contrary to most Bollywood characters, however, many of us love both our homes and are have no serious longing to return. India Se Aaya invokes many common themes of the quintessential Indian American experience including: working your way up the ladder and adapting to your host country without forgetting about home in a light-hearted manner.

India se aaya life banana, America main maal kamane

I came from India to make my life, to become wealthy in America

Aye mere yaaro aye mere pyaaro aaya yahan kuch karke dikhane

O friends, I came here to prove myself
Poocho na kya kya kiya

Don’t ask what all I had to do
Kabhi dhoyi thi car kabhi tha main bekaar

Sometimes I washed cars, sometimes I felt hopeless
Waiter ka kiya kaam sab ko kiya salaam

I worked as a waiter, saluted everybody

I couldn’t find the translated lyrics of this song online so I’ve taken the liberty to do it (clumsily) myself. The rest of the song can be found in the comments.

6.     Car Car Car – Nanna Preethiya Hudugi (2001)

One of the best Indian film songs relating to the differences between India and the West is not from Bollywood at all but instead from the Kannada film industry. Car Car Car from Nanna Preethiya Hudugi (My Beloved Girl) is an upbeat duet sung by the Indian American heroine and the rural Indian hero about the differences between their worlds. Although the song is about the differences in how people get around, it’s a brilliant microcosm of the real lifestyle and attitude differences between the two countries. And who’s not felt nostalgic for one while in the other?

Sontak beltu kattikondu

Fastening their seatbelts

Freeway nalli hari kondu

They fly down the freeway

Exit nalli jaarikoltharo

And skid through the exit

Namooralli hangenilla

It’s not like that where I come from (literally in my town)

Tractru lorry yethingadi

Tractor, lorry, bullock-cart

 Yenne barli hatkond hogthare

Whatever comes, they climb in and go

All these songs, whether melancholy and longing, or upbeat and celebratory, are like tiny mirrors that reflect a little bit of the complex diasporic experience. I wish, going forward, that the film industry adopts a more nuanced, and hence more relatable, attitude towards the immigrant experience.

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[1] See the movie Pardes to be beaten over the head with a sledgehammer with this message. Or if you haven’t the stomach for 3 hours of jingoism, watch this admittedly catchy song, “I love my India” (yes really!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBsRFjAkn8s